


Favor

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: LAOFT Extras [20]
Category: Cartoon Therapy (Web Series), Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Elliot offers roman drugs as innocently as any human being can do so, Gen, Unhealthy Sibling Relationships, culture clash, mentions of misgendering, nobody actualy does any drugs, vague threats of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 12:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19318633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: Elliot made a particularly… spooky friend.OrChad Pennybacker gets the fear of God put in himPart of theLove and Other FairytalesVerse





	Favor

**Author's Note:**

> It's impossible not to take one look at Elliott and want to protect them and that's basically the whole premise of this fic

Elliot noticed the weirdness right from the beginning, but it took quite a while for them to figure out what exactly was going on.

Suddenly, Elliot was… bizarrely lucky. Finding loose bills on the ground all over the place, always having just enough ingredients left for whatever they were fixing, forgetting to study for a test and guessing nearly every answer only to get the highest grade in the class.

But the moment Elliot  _really_  knew something was…  _afoot,_ was when they returned to their bedroom one day to find a bracelet on their bedside table that  _definitely_  hadn’t been there before they left.

Elliot didn’t touch the bracelet, but they picked up the little folded square card, which had some distinct and very precise handwriting on it.

_You don’t have to keep it. Just leave it there if you don’t want to._

Swallowing, Elliot leaned down to examine the jewelry.

It was fairly unassuming – two short lengths of black ribbon tied to a silver disk. The disk had a coat of arms on it, small enough that Elliot had to squint to make out the details.

It was purple and black, mostly, a little bit of silver – Elliot recognized a bat and a spider, lightning bolts and a gemstone. There was a dragon on one side, and a weird winged lizard with a chicken head on the other.

It didn’t escape Elliot’s notice that the note didn’t say what the purpose of the bracelet was. Was it enchanted? Some kind of protective amulet? A  _stamp?_

Because it  _also_  didn’t escape Elliot’s notice that they were almost positive they’d seen this symbol before. On another bracelet, crystal beads instead of ribbon. On a necklace of silver chain, usually hidden under a shirt. And finally, on a key chain, clipped to a backpack.

Roman Gage and the Sanders twins had some pretty  _distinctive_ jewelry.

Elliot was sure Patton Waller had a similar accessory, although nobody had seen more than a glimpse of him in weeks. The other two of the three musketeers didn’t seem concerned, and neither did Patton’s parents, so everybody had collectively – and  _silently_  – agreed not to mention it.

The final place they’d seen it – they were pretty sure anyway – was in the front window of the Sanders house, on a little plaque propped up in the sill.

So yeah, Elliot was pretty damn sure they knew where this thing had come from, in spite of the note being unsigned.

The ire of the Good Neighbors was dangerous, but their favor could be even more so. Hell,  _Patton Waller_  himself was a prime example. And the lord of the forest –  _Jesus_. And the proper one, apparently, although Elliot’s (waking) details about that were all secondhand and incredibly vague.

Elliot really ought to not even touch it.

… But.

 _But_ , none of the gifts so far had been hazardous, or would even really be noticeable to someone who hadn’t grown up in a place like Wickhills, hyper-aware of every out of place occurrence. And the note said they didn’t have to take it. Elliot had never heard of fae giving someone the option to  _turn down_  a gift.

And sometimes… sometimes Elliot would close their eyes, and there would be pictures there, memories like washed out chalk drawings and dim photo negatives. Elliot had never seen the Spider Prince smile, but they knew what he’d look like when he did. All kinds of smiles – grinning with triumph and snickering with some successful mischief, soft smiles, fond ones, smiles shaking with heedless laughing.

And there was nothing dim about the nightmares, that made Elliot wake up choking on sobs and itching to climb out of bed and sprint into the woods to look and look and look until they found what had been taken.

Elliot had spoken to the Spider Prince exactly once – they should not feel like he was their…  _friend,_  like he cared about Elliot in particular at all, really.

Except there was this  _bracelet,_  which meant the Spider Prince did, at least, know who Elliot was which was… something. Whether that something was good or bad Elliot wasn’t quite sure yet.

It was suicidally stupid, and the smartest thing Elliot could do would be to leave the bracelet there and go for a walk and hope it was gone when they came back.

So of course, because everybody in Wickhills was a little bit crazy by default and it was apparently Elliot’s turn with the kooky ball, they put on the stupid bracelet.

* * *

Chad was coming to visit, and Elliot had never dreaded anything quite so much in their life.

It wasn’t like Chad  _hated_  them. They thought. Probably. And Elliot certainly didn’t hate him – they just…

Chad never deliberately misgendered them, but he didn’t try to hard not to, either. He didn’t say anything  _just_  to be mean (or at least, he hadn’t since they were kids) but he wasn’t super concerned with Elliot’s feelings when he spoke in general. He didn’t hit them (again – anymore) but he seemed to delight in the inches and pounds he had on Elliot, and the subsequent nervousness whenever Chad did his…  _looming_  thing.

Elliot wasn’t quite  _afraid_ of Chad, but – nervous, definitely. Skittish.

Not that Elliot was ever really  _not_  (at least a little) nervous, to be fair.

And maybe they’d gotten used to having some semblance of peace when Chad had went off to college, and they we’re definitely  _not_ looking forward to having said peace unceremoniously interrupted, even if it was only for one weekend.

Turns out the peace was getting interrupted just a little bit sooner than that.

It was an unseasonably hot for early-mid spring, so Elliot got it in their head to open a window. Except when they went to the bedroom window, there was a striking and  _painfully_  conspicuous black splotch standing perfectly still on the edge of the woods.

Elliot made some kind of terrified noise before they could really restrain it, and those freaky-intense purple eyes snapped up toward them. The Spider Prince stared for a long moment.

And then he furrowed his brow, tilted his head, and gave Elliot a questioning thumbs up.

It was official – they’d lost their mind.

Elliot swallowed, and returned the thumbs up with a shaky smile.

The prince took a step back, and Elliot blinked, and then he was gone.

“O-kay,” said Elliot, “Okay, okay, okay. Great. Awesome,”

“ _Elliot!_ ”

Elliot followed their dad’s voice down the steps, wringing their hands trying desperately to figure out what, exactly, had just happened. He barely looked up at them when they came around the corner.

“Chad’s here,” he said, “Can you help him carry in his stuff?”

Elliot nodded, and the anxiety in their stomach turned to outright foreboding.

Chad was already pulling his rolling suitcase out of the car when Elliot got outside. He glanced up at them, reached into the trunk, and unceremoniously shoved a duffel bag into their arms.

Elliot let out a startled  _oof_ , readjusting their grip on the bag.

Chad started, squinting down at Elliot’s arm.

“You wear  _jewelry_  now?” he said scathingly.

Elliot’s face flushed, switching their grip to hide the bracelet.

“It- it was a present,” they said.

Not inaccurate, but not exactly clear – but Elliot was  _not_  going to initiate a conversation about Fair Folk with  _Chad_  of all people. He had a disdain for them so notorious it was a  _miracle_  he hadn’t been pixie-led straight into a pit of  _spikes_  by now.

Chad rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed, but he didn’t say anything else. They both returned to the house without any other conversation, and Elliot tried really hard not to feel hurt when their dad’s face lit up as soon as Chad came through the door.

They hovered awkwardly in the entryway, feeling like a guest in their own house, but well, that was ironically a pretty familiar feeling after fifteen years.

They tried to scoot past but the movement drew their dad’s eye, and he got that expression in his face that usually meant he was about to make Elliot do something he considered “good for them” and  _Elliot_ considered “borderline torture.”

“Dinner’s not gonna be ready for two or three hours, your mom’s making a roast,” he said, “Why don’t you two go to the grocery, pick up some pop?”

 _I would rather pull my own teeth with rusty pliers_ , Elliot thought, but did not say.

Be good to get some quality… sibling time,” said Dad, and Elliot didn’t miss the hesitation.

“Sure, dad, that’d be great,” said Chad, grinning, “Come on, Shortstack, let’s see if I can get manage to get lost on six streets,”

The corner of Elliot’s mouth quirked up, and Chad actually smiled back.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Chad had grown some empathy in the school year he’d been gone.

They  _really_  should have known better.

The drive was… awkward at first, but just awkward-awkward, not petrified-awkward, which was a marked improvement.

“You got a girlfriend yet?” asked Chad.

Elliot winced.

“Uh, no,” they said.

Chad wrinkled his nose.

“A boyfriend, then? Or – I don’t know what the fuck it’d be otherwise, a- ‘gender-neutral friend’…?”

Elliot snorted, half-nervous and half genuinely amused. Chad said ‘gender-neutral’ the way he always said things like that, condescending and like he thought it was unbearably stupid, which hurt but… he’d asked. So, small victories.

“No, just me,” they said, “Me, myself and I, I guess,”

Chad shrugged.

He glanced around them as they drove down Fletcher, and then a familiar and terror-inducing smile spread across his face.

“Oh-ho-ho, look what we have here,” he said, and then he pulled into the parking lot of Fletcher park.

Confused, Elliot looked up to where Chad’s gaze fell, and then their veins ran cold as ice.

“Chad,  _don’t_ ,” they choked.

“Don’t what?” said Chad, unconcerned, “I just wanna say  _hello_ ,”

“Chad, I  _mean it_ ,” they said desperately, “I’m so serious right now,  _do not_  do this,”

Chad rolled his eyes, putting the car in park and climbing out, walking straight into the park.

Straight towards  _Logan and Roman._

“ _Shit_ ,” spat Elliot. They leapt out of the car after him, speed walking to keep up with his longer gait.

“Hey, Sanders!” Chad shouted, “Long time no see!”

Elliot could  _see_  the resignation that Logan’s shoulders instantly carried, and feel the heat of Roman’s glare even from several dozen feet away. Elliot wanted to scream, and they didn’t know if it was terror or frustration.

“Where’s the other third of weirdo brigade?” asked Chad as the two Pennybacker’s finally came up on the two of them, “Thought you three were glued at the hips,”

Elliot tried to apologize with just their eyes, but Logan and Roman either didn’t notice or didn’t feel the need to acknowledge them.

“Patton’s on a trip,” said Roman, voice clipped.

“Little dangerous, isn’t it?” said Chad, “Wouldn’t think he’d leave town, other folks don’t know to avoid him,”

Logan’s face was twisted in distaste, even as he didn’t look up from his book. Roman’s glare hadn’t wavered an inch.

“Fuck off, Chad,” he said, “I’m really  _not_  in the mood for your bullshit,”

“Hey, I’m just making conversation,” said Chad, grinning.

“And as always, your skills in such an endeavor are  _woefully_  lacking,” sneered Logan.

“What a way to talk to an old friend,” said Chad, tutting obnoxiously.

“You are no more my friend than you are capable of producing speech that is not migraine-inducing and inane,”

Elliot groaned internally when Chad’s face twitched with confusion. Chad hated feeling like other people knew something he didn’t – which was probably why he didn’t like Logan Sanders in the first place.

“What the fuck does that mean?” demanded Chad.

“Chad, c’mon, we gotta- we’re supposed to be getting groceries,” said Elliot desperately.

“ _Shut up_ ,”

Elliot mouth clamped shut with an audible  _click_  of teeth, and Roman cast them an unusually sympathetic look.

“It means I would rather chew hot glass than continue to converse with you,” said Logan, climbing to his feet and moving to walk past Chad.

Chad’s hand snapped forward, grabbing Logan by the wrist. The dirt at Logan’s feet shifted, green started to creep out, and  _fuck_  Chad was gonna die, he was  _absolutely_  gonna die-

Desperate, Elliot lurched forward, grabbing Chad’s wrist and pulling.

“Chad, come  _on_ , please just let it go,” they begged.

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

“Chad, you  _idiot_ , would you listen to me for  _once-_ ”

“What the  _fuck_  did you call me?”

Chad didn’t let go of Logan, but now he was doing the  _looming_ thing, directed at Elliot, and you know what,  _fine,_  if Elliot had to put up with their brother being a brute that was at least an improvement over their brother being a  _corpse_.

Chad’s other hand grabbed Elliot by the front of the shirt and their heart leapt into their throat. Roman suddenly shouldered his way forward, shoving Chad backwards a step and breaking his hold on both Elliot and Logan.

“Get your hands off them,” he growl, and Elliot startled at being included.

Chad shoved Roman back, and it was like watching a car crash.

Chad’s  _own shadow_  twisted toward him, warping into another silhouette entirely before lurching up  _out of the ground_  until a dark and towering figure stood in between all of them.

If  _Chad_  loomed, Elliot didn’t even know what to call  _this_. The air was so thick with pure  _rage_  that it was like Elliot could actually feel it, and when the Spider Prince grabbed Chad’s still-outstretched hand around the wrist Chad yelped in pain, went sheet-white, and hit his knees.

“What the  _fuck_ ,” Chad said, voice strangled, and he tried to dig his free hand into the prince’s fingers to break his grip. It didn’t even budge.

“ **I don’t like you** ,” said the prince, like a record-scratch against the inside of Elliot’s skull, and yeah, there was really not anything Elliot could do to keep their brother alive at this point. Hell, Elliot wasn’t positive  _they_  were going to still be alive after this.

Something on the opposite side of the prince from Elliot moved, and Elliot startled.

So short he was barely visible stood Patton, who had his arms wrapped around the prince’s waist, looking a little motion-sick but otherwise unconcerned. Elliot hadn’t even noticed him.

Patton calmly ran one hand across the prince’s ribs.

“Sweetheart,” he said, and Elliot felt the suicidal urge to laugh hysterically at someone referring to this towering, terrifying immortal as “sweetheart,”

“Do you think you could let Chad go?” said Patton quietly, “I think Roman’s really upset,”

The prince scowled, but when he spoke his voice sounded – not  _human_ , definitely not, but at least not like Elliot’s brain was going to melt out of their ears.

“If you raise a hand to my beloved again,” he said, “I will crush it into mincemeat. Do you understand?”

“Who the  _fuck_  are you?” shrieked Chad.

“Do you understand,  _yes or no?_ ” snarled the prince.

“Yeah, Jesus fuck, okay, I understand!” said Chad.

The prince’s eyes narrowed, and then he flicked his hand. Chad tumbled to the ground like he’d been tackled. The prince had looked like he’d exerted about as much effort as it took Elliot to swat a fly.

Chad scrambled to his feet, bolting for the parking lot at a dead sprint. Elliot wavered – on the one hand, Chad was their ride, and also the prince probably wasn’t going to be super fond of the sibling of the guy he’d just threatened to maim, weird brand jewelry notwithstanding.

On the other hand, they’d hesitated too long, and Chad didn’t even pause for a second when he got into his car, throwing it in reverse and squealing away from the park.

So that was  _that_  decision made for them.

Elliot turned to look at the four of them, wringing their hands.

Roman did not look good – oh, he was smiling, sure, his expression completely unconcerned, and insisting he was fine in a voice that would have convinced Elliot easily if they hadn’t been able to see him.

Because he was also pale as skim milk, nearly gray, and his hands were shaking like he was shivering in a blizzard.

Logan was biting his lip, and Patton was clearly fretting and the prince looked somewhere between furious and desperately anxious.

Roman’s breath started to whistle, just barely and Elliot blurted the words out before they could reconsider.

“Hey, do you- do you want an ativan?” said Elliot.

The regretted it the second they spoke, because four gazes snapped to them immediately, in varying stages of assessing and horrified.

“ _Elliot!_ ” said Patton, clearly scandalized.

Elliot shuffled awkwardly.

“I know how that sounds,” they said, uneasy, “But- I mean, you don’t look so good, honestly, like – you probably need it more than me, right now,”

“What is it?” demanded the prince.

“It is a medicine,” said Logan, looking at Elliot with an inscrutable expression, “A sedative, typically prescribed for anxiety or panic attacks,”

“It’s half a milligram, it’s not dangerous,” said Elliot.

“It’s also  _illegal_ ,” snapped Logan.

Elliot held up their hands in a placating gesture.

“If this  _isn’t_  an emergency, I don’t really know what is,” said Elliot quietly.

“Roman,” said the prince, “It’s up to you,”

Roman still had that smile in place, the one that made Elliot a little nauseous and a little afraid – but there was also something familiar about it. Elliot recognized that particular tension, the color of that expression.

Cornered. Trapped.

“Back up,” blurted Elliot.

The prince made an inhuman noise, just this side of a snarl, whirling on Elliot with an expression that bordered on vicious.

Roman did not flinch, and Elliot knew it was on purpose.

“You’re crowding him,” said Elliot. Their voice was weirdly firm – they’d never felt so out of their depth, but they’d never  _sounded_  more like they knew what they were talking about. “You’re too close. Back up,”

The prince hesitated, glancing between Elliot and Roman, and the he shuffled backwards a couple feet. Logan and Patton followed suite.

Roman smiled that perfect fake smile, but his eyes went slightly glossy and his hands stilled by a fraction.

“I’m sorry,” he choked, and Elliot’s lungs clenched in sympathy.

“Do you want the ativan?” they said gently.

Roman shook his head instantly.

“No,” he said, “No- no substances,”

“Okay,” they said, and then Logan picked up a count in a steady rhythm.

After several sets, Roman’s smile turned softer, less sharp. He sniffed a little, reaching out for the prince, who gripped his hand back almost desperately but didn’t move closer.

“I’m good,” said Roman, “I’m- I’ve got it,”

“Are you  _sure?”_ the prince croaked, suddenly looking and sounding the same as all of them, a freaked out teenager who just dodged a fist fight. Elliot relaxed marginally.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” said Roman, and then he smiled over at Elliot.

“Are  _you_  okay?”

Elliot startled, and then quailed under all the gazes turned on them again.

“Why- why wouldn’t I be?” they dodged.

Roman didn’t look impressed.

“Because you were just stuck between three frankly kind of scary people, and got shoved around by your own brother?”

Elliot shrugged.

“It’s not like he hasn’t shoved me around before,” they tried to joke, and then flushed when their voice came out sounding absolutely pathetic.

“What an asshole,” someone muttered, and Elliot’s eyes widened a little when they realized it was  _Patton_  who said it.

“Is that why you were afraid this morning?” asked the prince.

Elliot made some kind of strangled noise.

“How did you-?”

He pointed at Elliot’s bracelet.

“ _That’s_  what this is for?”

“What did you  _think_  it was for?”

“I don’t know!” said Elliot, “I don’t- I don’t even know why you gave it to me! Why would you care if I’m afraid?”

The prince looked just as confused as Elliot felt.

“You’re my friend?” he said incredulously.

“Since  _when_?” yelped Elliot, which was a stupid,  _stupid_  thing to say, apparently Elliot was  _really_  hogging the kooky ball this week.

That was about the time Elliot realized the other three were clearly trying not to laugh.

“We did tell you,” said Logan, and the prince scowled with no heat at him.

“I said I  _appreciated_  your concern. In the hospital,”

Elliot stared, uncomprehending.

The prince huffed.

“Alright, fine,” he muttered, sending another look back at the other three, “I-”

He looked distinctly uncomfortable. Elliot felt like the entire world had titled on it’s axis.

“Do you- want to be? My friend, I guess?”

No. Well,  _yes_  but- that would be stupid. Probably.

“Why would you even want to be my friend?” asked Elliot, avoiding the question again.

The prince threw his hands up in the air.

“Why do I feel like humans just got even  _more_  confusing while I was asleep?”

Elliot put their hands on their hips, suddenly irritated.

“ _I’m_ confusing? We’ve had one conversation and you empathically _lo-jacked_  me, and then my stupid brother picked a fight a whole  _solar system_  out of his league so until about ninety seconds ago I thought  _I_ was about to be mincemeat,”

The prince’s shoulders fell. He looked…  _hurt._

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he mumbled.

Well. Now Elliot  _felt bad_.

“Okay,” they said, “Okay okay okay. Great. Uh. Can you- elaborate on the friend thing, please. Because I’m still just – totally lost, over here,”

“You asked about my sister,” said the prince, “You wanted to make sure she was okay,”

Okay. Sister made sense – she’d been absolutely blind with grief and Elliot couldn’t exactly  _relate_ , but – okay.

“Yeah,” said Elliot, “She was really upset, so I- it seemed important to check,”

“Nobody else did,” said the prince.

Elliot shrugged.

“She hit me first,” said Elliot, “I’m pretty sure anyway, I got admitted first, so she was – you know, bouncing around in my head for a while,”

The prince nodded.

“Yeah. And how much fun were you having, while she was in there?”

Ah.

“Uh-”

“You woke up from a coma,” said the prince, “After having a hundred years worth of rage and grief screaming in your head for a day and a half, and your first instinct was to  _check on the thing that was hurting you_ ,”

Elliot flushed.

The prince looked somewhere between amused and genuinely fond.

“So yeah, I was y’know,” he waved his hand, just barely a little pink around the cheeks, “Touched or whatever, alright? Ugh,”

Patton was outright shaking with silent laughter at this point, his head resting on the prince’s shoulder. Roman was grinning, and Logan had his fist pressed to his mouth and was repeatedly clearing his throat in a totally un-subtle way.

And Elliot…

Well. Elliot hadn’t really been expecting… that. No weird deal or some kind of mistake they’d accidentally made, just… that they were nice about his sister? And the other three didn’t  _seem_  like they were being… held hostage or something. They were  _laughing_  at the prince, pretty blatantly, and totally unconcerned with if it might upset him.

And… well, Elliot already had the kooky ball anyway, didn’t they?

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll- I’ll be your friend,” they said before they could talk themself out of it.

Patton beamed, and Logan and Roman seemed a little surprised but undeniably pleased. The prince turned a little more pink and gave Elliot a lopsided smile that made Elliot’s mouth twitch into a mirroring grin on autopilot.

And then the prince’s smile took on a strange… edge, and for some reason, instead of being afraid, Elliot suddenly felt like something  _hilarious_  was about to happen.

“So,” said the prince, “About your brother…”

* * *

Elliot sat on the back porch, relieved to have avoided more than a few minutes worth of lecturing about “ditching your brother to walk around town for an hour,” throughout which Chad had looked increasingly freaked out when Elliot just nodded along serenely.

They actually felt kind of giddy. Or maybe just hysterical. Really, was there that much difference between the two?

Chad came out onto the porch, his eyes darting around the backyard with a slightly wild-eyed expression.

“So, like,” said Chad, “What- what’d he do?”

Elliot shrugged.

“Nothing, really,” they said, “He was nice,”

“ _Nice_?” demanded Chad, “You thing that thing is  _nice_?”

“He’s not a ‘thing,’ Chad,” Elliot admonished, “And yeah, nice. He was just mad because you messed with two of his boyfriends. You should probably apologize,”

“What the  _fuck_ ,” said Chad, “You’re telling me freak squad what, all hooked up and then  _also_ hooked up with the only thing  _freakier than them_?”

Elliot winced a bit.

“Oh, boy,” they muttered, “That’s the exact opposite of apologizing,”

“Who the hell  _cares?”_

“Me, to start,”

Chad paled instantly, spinning on his heel to look behind him.

“Hey,” said V, cross-legged on the porch with his elbows on his knees and his chin propped up on one hand, wearing a smile that looked decidedly deadly. He somehow managed to look imposing from all the way on the ground.

“You didn’t say goodbye,” he said in a deceptively casual voice, “Very rude of you,”

Chad made a noise that resembled a mouse being stepped on more than a human.

“I get the feeling you’re pretty rude in general, though,” said V.

Chad turned his head and hissed out of the corner of his mouth, “What’s on God’s green earth did you  _do_ , Elliot?”

“Made a friend, apparently,” they laughed.

Chad looked like he was going to pop a blood vessel.

“Here’s the deal,” said V, “I still don’t like you,”

Chad choked.

“But I’m not actually all that homicidal, generally speaking,” he continued, “I just really don’t like people hurting my people. So, you’re not going to do that anymore,”

“Right,” croaked Chad, “Totally- Got it, A-okay,”

V pointed.

“That includes  _them_ ,”

Chad looked like he was either about to bolt or he was about to faint. Elliot was genuinely kind of curious which one would win out.

“Yeah, okay,” he squeaked, “Sure, I can do that,”

“Fantastic,” said V, “Then we’re all on the same page,”

V rolled to his feet in one fluid motion, and bolting apparently won.

Chad yelped and scrambled for the back door, slamming it behind him and clicking the lock shut. V was snickering, and Elliot did feel a twinge of hurt that Chad had yet again ditched them to what he thought was a hostile fae.

But honestly, his face  _had_  been pretty funny.

“There,” said V, “He seems pretty dense, but if he actually keeps messing with you I’ll be very surprised,”

Elliot shrugged.

“I won’t, honestly,” they said, “He’s never stopped messing with Logan, not even after that time he found a whole ant colony in his locker after he put  _Logan_  in a locker,”

V’s expression became considering.

“Which room is your brother’s, again?”

“V,” warned Elliot.

“What?”

“I have to live in this house, too,”

V shrugged, looking not even a little contrite.

“Mortals,” he scoffed, though it sounded more amused than truly scathing, “You’re all so touchy about anything with more than four limbs,”

And then he reached out and- and he ruffled Elliot’s hair.

It was a quintessential older brother move, and something lurched in Elliot’s stomach because  _Chad_  had certainly never been so casually affectionate. And something else, a sort of… open wound in their head, where  _she_  had been, felt like it scabbed over, just a bit.

Elliot felt a flash of embarrassment that they definitely… definitely might be tearing up. A little.

They cleared their throat, and maybe V noticed or maybe he didn’t but he did smile, anther crooked grin that was familiar and brand new.

“I’ll see you around, kid,” he said fondly, “Try not to get in the middle of any more brawls though; wouldn’t want every time I see you to be a rescue mission,”

“Right. I appreciate it,” said Elliot, and when V actually snorted and roped Elliot into a brief one-armed hug, setting his chin on top of their head, Elliot realized they’d never actually been  _less_  afraid in their life.

**Author's Note:**

> the animal on the coat of arms Elliott can't identify is a [ cockatrice ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockatrice) and i do draw coats of arms as a hobby, so if yall wanna see it (i rough sketched it but if yall are interested i'll finish and color it) lemme know. i'll probably post it to my [ tumblr ](tulipscomeinallsortofcolors.tumblr.com) and link it here because i have NO clue how to post fanart on Ao3
> 
> Edit: [ i drew it! ](https://tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com/post/185929871140/i-know-my-camera-is-shit-but-it-is-done-and-i)


End file.
